tennis trophies

I’ve had this fascination with tennis trophies ever since I saw the one they gave to Nikolay Davydenko after he won the Paris Masters last November:

I’m not sure if this version of the photo does it justice, but it has this weird oxidized copper color and it looks like cubist coral or tree. Okay so maybe I’m a little biased (since I think Davydenko is hot, depending on the angle of camera), but I thought it was a cool trophy, and it made me curious about what else they give out–how many of them end up looking like generic mounds of glass, or silver cups, how many of them are trying to do something cooler and not so steeped in tennis tradition), etc. In this age of sleeveless shirts, round-robin tournaments, and courtside coaching, even the trophies are evolving.

Maybe the organizers of the Paris tournament just wanted to keep their Tennis Masters Series status. (Per the Tennis MailBag , Hamburg and Monte Carlo get downgraded for 2007.)

I’ll try to post the trophies once a week, especially if someone is handing out something pretty.